You’re probably concerned about cybersecurity. You’re not alone. A 2019 survey of 1200 business owners in the USA found that more than half admitted to worrying about cyber risks. Closer to home, PwC reports that cybercrime is on the increase in South Africa and Namibia, with a notable surge during the COVID-19 pandemic.
If you’re not concerned, you certainly should be.
No organisation is immune
The South African Department of Justice is just one of many recent victims of a cyberattack. The hack caused delays at courts across the country. It happened in September but was only contained in the middle of October. Transnet and the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) are other government entities that have fallen foul of cybercriminals. In the private sector, Experian, the multinational consumer credit reporting agency, was the victim of data fraud. African Bank also suffered a data breach involving customers’ personal information. In Namibia over the last 12 months, there have been numerous ransomware, phishing, and DDoS attacks, however, the businesses and institutions have non-disclosure agreements in place and as such confirmed and reference cases are not available. Namibia’s exposure to, and experience with cybercrime is on the rise, and the lack of much-needed legislation is preventing law enforcers to deal with this.
No individual or organisation is safe from cybercrime. Working from home has impacted heavily on the network security of all organisations, whether commercial, government or not-for-profit. Multiple connected devices give hackers much wider access to systems than before. 53% of South African organisations experienced increased phishing attacks, and 46% reported heightened impersonation fraud compared to 2019, according to the 2020 Mimecast report into the State of Email Security. The last official statistics available for Namibia is 2017/2018. The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology has launched a public participation forum to understand the exposure and the legislation that needs to be put in place. Deloitte’s Cyber Security Survey for Namibia of March 2018, clearly highlighted Namibia’s risk.
With hands-on experience in the Information Security and Digital Forensic environments for more than 2 decades, NEWORDER is a prominent authority in information security and corporate threat protection. This service provides strategic and tactical insight into an organisation's actual state of security. It verifies whether the best practices and adequate safety measures are in place to mitigate and minimise the impact of known and unknown security risks.
Crime-fighting partnership
Technology holds the key to seating government and citizens around the same dinner table to understand and attain common goals and objectives. It also enables transparency through the government’s ability to communicate directly With this holistic, cost-effective way of making your security concerns their business, Windhoek-based Salt Essential IT has partnered with NEWORDER to bring an additional layer of digital security capabilities and a little bit of peace of mind to Namibian businesses.
“Salt has been instrumental in deploying state of the art security solutions for our customers to combat the ever-growing rise of cybercrime in Namibia,” according to Salt’s Commercial Expansion Manager, Vanessa Maresch. “In light of this drive, we are very pleased with our partnership with NEWORDER, as they are internationally renowned experts in threat assessments to test for vulnerabilities and gaps in perimeter, network, endpoint and application security. I quote myself when saying: You don’t know what you don’t know. Salt is excited that with this joint offering, you will be in the know and in a position to protect your business.”
Says Bennie Barnard, NEWORDER Chief Commercial Officer, “We partner with technology experts who provide us with strategic information security technology that complements the NEWORDER offering for specific, niche threats. Our partnership with Salt completes the circle of security through layered security solutions that ensure the customer is protected in accordance with industry best practices. This, and our other collaborations give us enhanced solution functionalities so we can fight cybercrime on your behalf.
Namibia and its neighboring countries are a pivotal part of our Sub-Saharan Africa expansion strategy and we are delighted to partner with Salt. Not only are they a well-known brand and market leader in their space, but more importantly: our joint customers now have access to best-in-class information security products and services in a central location. We look forward to assisting both existing and new customers with the implementation and execution of their cyber resilience strategies.”
This partnership is like having both the X-Men and The Avengers in your corner. If you need to enhance the defences you deploy, and sleep just a little easier at night, contact Salt at contact@salt.na. For more information about NEWORDER, please visit www.newordergroup.net.
Author: Salt Marketing
